No.

Assuming that your setup will even be capable of evaporating the material (melting point of approx. 1400 degrees Celsius), the first thing that will happen is carbon, sulphur and phosphorous (in the form of volatile phosphides) will be removed. Due to their high vapor pressures (and assuming that you are using the *extremely* high vacuum required for sublimating stainless steel), these will most likely not even be deposited on your substrate and instead evacuated to the vacuum source.

Once the "volatile" elements are removed, the remaining metals will be sequentially sublimated and re-sublimate on your substrate, in the order of decreasing vapor pressures, producing a layered structure. An excellent source of vapor pressure vs temperature data is R.E.Honig's works from the 1950s and 1960s:

"Vapor Pressure Data for the Solid and Liquid Elements", RCA Review, June 1969, Vol. 30, No. 2

"Vapor pressure data for the more common elements", RCA Review, 1957, 18, 195-204

A short (and informal) compilation of the relevant data can also be found here: http://image.sciencenet.cn/olddata/kexue.com.cn/bbs/upload/10170Vapor_Pressure_Data.pdf

So, assuming that your vacuum chamber can be kept at 1miliTorr, sublimaitng iron would require a temperature of roughly 1340 degrees Celsius. Assuming you can produce a 1E-8 Torr vacuum, "only" approx. 900 degrees Celsius will be required. For the :low volatility" components of 316/316L, such as molybdenum, temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees celsius will be required, even at a 1E-8 Torr vacuum.

A better way of producing a stainless steel "coating" on your substrate would be to use CVD (chemical vapour deposition), starting from compounds of the metals you want to be present in the coating. These compounds should be volatile and should decompose, forming the desired metals , which can then precipitate on the substrate of your choice. The use of CVD instead of PVD will eliminate the need for ultra-high vacuum and can be carried out at lower (let's say 500 degrees Celsius) temperatures. Following the deposition of the "mixed metal layer" on the substrate, you can anneal the layer and obtain something *roughly* similar to that stainless steel.

No.

Assuming that your setup will even be capable of evaporating the material (melting point of approx. 1400 degrees Celsius), the first thing that will happen is carbon, sulphur and phosphorous (in the form of volatile phosphides) will be removed. Due to their high vapor pressures (and assuming that you are using the *extremely* high vacuum required for sublimating stainless steel), these will most likely not even be deposited on your substrate and instead evacuated to the vacuum source.

Once the "volatile" elements are removed, the remaining metals will be sequentially sublimated and re-sublimate on your substrate, in the order of decreasing vapor pressures, producing a layered structure. An excellent source of vapor pressure vs temperature data is R.E.Honig's works from the 1950s and 1960s:

"Vapor Pressure Data for the Solid and Liquid Elements", RCA Review, June 1969, Vol. 30, No. 2

"Vapor pressure data for the more common elements", RCA Review, 1957, 18, 195-204

A short (and informal) compilation of the relevant data can also be found here: http://image.sciencenet.cn/olddata/kexue.com.cn/bbs/upload/10170Vapor_Pressure_Data.pdf

So, assuming that your vacuum chamber can be kept at 1miliTorr, sublimaitng iron would require a temperature of roughly 1340 degrees Celsius. Assuming you can produce a 1E-8 Torr vacuum, "only" approx. 900 degrees Celsius will be required. For the :low volatility" components of 316/316L, such as molybdenum, temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees celsius will be required, even at a 1E-8 Torr vacuum.

A better way of producing a stainless steel "coating" on your substrate would be to use CVD (chemical vapour deposition), starting from compounds of the metals you want to be present in the coating. These compounds should be volatile and should decompose, forming the desired metals , which can then precipitate on the substrate of your choice. The use of CVD instead of PVD will eliminate the need for ultra-high vacuum and can be carried out at lower (let's say 500 degrees Celsius) temperatures. Following the deposition of the "mixed metal layer" on the substrate, you can anneal the layer and obtain something *roughly* similar to that stainless steel.

@ Tomasz Jarosz

But what about oxidation in a poor vacuum?

It is rather complicated, but you could use magnetron sputter deposition of the main alloying elements.

Each element with dedicated magnetron.

Most of the time you need to restrict your self to about 4-5 elements, also may be there are machines having more magetrons.

Also, sputtering of ferromagnetic materials like Fe is non trivial. Other materials like Mo and C, are easier. How thick should the layer be?

And these methods in general lead to very different micro-structures than casting. As, pointed out above annealing can help, however thickness exceeding a few µm are difficult to obtain.

Thank you all for your participation.

I’m currently trying it out and will be back with the SEM results.

@ Vladimir Dusevich

Oxidation with trace amounts of oxygen might be a significant issue, but could possibly be averted by operating protocol, i.e. repeatedly purging the vacuum chamber with an inert gas prior to applying the vacuum. Obviously, this would only limit the concentration of oxygen in the chamber at the start of the experiment; if the seal of the chamber is imperfect, the heated 316L steel would be readily oxidised. Depending on the rate, at which oxygen infiltrates the chamber, this could be either a marginal issue or even a full "burn-out" of the elements / compounds more prone to oxidation.

I do not have any data about the vapor pressures of metal oxides, so I cannot say how this would affect the sequence, in which the components would be deposited.

Thinking on this question, I have found a paper that can possibly be useful for developing the hypothetical CVD procedure: Article Thin films of metal oxides on silicon by chemical vapor depo...

Although the use of organometallic compounds could make the CVD very "user-friendly", it would also require the addition of one more stage to the process - chemical reduction of the produced metal oxide layer. Coupled with annealing, this might actually yield a layer more similar to the original stainless steel.

@ Naser Ali

If possible, please perform a SEM-EDX (or EDS, since both abbreviations are commonly used) experiment for both the original stainless steel and the deposited layer. This will allow you to compare the concentrations of various metal atoms on the surface of the two layers and be of assistance when describing the nature of the deposited layer.